Overview

The Monthly Snapshot is a regular publishing of information in regards to happenings within the NationStates Cards. It details overall market use (by players), the most notable cards, the most recognizable traders, card events, and more!

Why Should I Read This?

As to why it is advisable to read the Snapshot, it is due to the fact that NationStates Cards is a growing and expanding feature. It was supposed to have only been an April Fools event in 2018, but it was later kept due to a massive effort by players to keep the feature. Therefore, administrators and players have been tirelessly working to make cards more interesting, and the Monthly Snapshot serves to highlight ongoing things players might've skimmed past (due to the relatively new addition of cards as a whole).

Section written by Noahs Second Country.

What's Been Going On?

1. TCALS Has Been Significantly Nerfed: The Trading Cards Anti Laundering Service (aka TCALS) has been notably changed following months of abuse by various traders using the newly discovered bid mechanic. Game administrator Ballotonia has announced that traders can no longer store thousands of packs and expect to pull cards at auction, as only packs opened within 2 minutes of creation are now eligible for TCALS. This means that traders must answer issues and open fresh packs in hopes of pulling cards put up for pull events.

2. A Card Has Been Traded for 10000 Bank: Noahs Second Country recently used the card of Death and Killing Tactics 3 to transfer the maximum trade amount between themselves and a puppet of theirs, SecoNd beSt card colleCtor.

Given the fact that only 2 traders are capable of achieving this feat currently, it is likely that this may not only be the first instance of a 10000 bank transaction, but also the last. Regardless, that is an impressive amount of bank to put at risk just for the sake of an experiment.

3. Condemn Mikeswill Fails at Vote: A resolution intending to condemn Mikeswill in a similar fashion to Koem Kab for their domination in the card markets has failed. This is the first resolution mentioning trading cards to fail on the voting floor of the Security Council, though the reasons for it failing may not be attributed to cards.

4. Independent Card Events Continue to Thrive: Regional card events and competitions from organizations such as the North Pacific Cards Guild have grown notably in the past few months, but individual card events/organizations have also seen success lately. 9003's Card Olympics, Harmonic Empire's Card Hunger Games, and Noahs Second Country's Card News have all accrued a decent following. These events and organizations, among others, enable players from various regions to interact with each other, ultimately benefiting the unity of the cards community as a whole. They also attract newcomers to cards where regional organizations may not be particularly effective.

What does the TCALS change mean for community pull events?

Prior to the TCALS change, any single individual could set up a pull event of their own and expect to pull a few copies every hour, just by opening a decent volume of stored packs. Similarly, community pull events produced many new copies, often causing crashes of valuable cards such as Pergamon and Soops. However, with traders no longer able to store packs, the capacity of each puppet has been reduced significantly, as each puppet (on average) will produce only 1 pack that qualifies for TCALS. With the additional task of answering 5 issues, individual pull events have already seen much lower levels of success.

However, community pull events, which were formerly dominated by a small group of traders despite many participating, have continued to thrive, as seen by The North Pacific's July Pull Event. Despite the capabilities of each individual being reduced, pulls continue to remain steady as so many traders are attempting to pull the card.

Ultimately, this TCALS change enables the fun atmosphere of community pull events while regulating individual pull events.

Article contributed by Praeceps and Destructive Government Economic System.

General Overview

Promoting cards whenever and wherever possible can be a huge factor when it comes to increasing trading interest. However, doing so in a way that causes widespread interest may prove to be a challenge. For example, sending telegrams to prospective trading nations may lead to at least 1 nation to read them, but the vast majority may disregard the messages due to the possibility of the telegrams being seen as spam.

This is when promoting cards in a more meaningful way comes to the picture. In this section, one of the most prominent members of The North Pacific Cards Guild, Praeceps, chose to project the presence of card trading within an event hosted by regions The North Pacific and The South Pacific. Due to attendance in the event being completely voluntary, viewers of Praeceps's card lecture would likely show more interest in the topic - and therefore take into consideration the growing popularity in which cards has been experiencing over the years.

Praeceps's lecture has been transcribed below, in order to give readers a general view on how promoting cards within events in NationStates can be conducted:

Speech Introduction

The following is a modified transcript of a lecture and question period Praeceps conducted during A Drop in The Ocean 2, a festival between The North Pacific and The South Pacific.

Praeceps: Hello everyone! For those who don't know me, I have been the leader of The North Pacific's card programs for almost a year now. Our program is collected underneath an organization called The North Pacific Cards Guild, which provides a number of benefits to our members. We currently have over 80 members. Cards have been used to increase the number of WA nations, endorsements in the region, citizens, and members of our military. We have also seen a number of other regions mimic our programs to varying degrees - following our success. What I am looking to discuss today is how Government can get involved in promoting cards to regions. I encourage asking questions throughout the lecture, especially relevant ones.

Part of this lecture relies on also why Government should be using cards so for those of you who may have read my article on why Government should use cards will notice their similarities [Editor's Note: content has been edited to remove sections related to a past article which can be found in a previous edition].

Reasons Used to Persuade

Praeceps: To kick this off, I'll start by listing the reasons that regions should be wanting to get involved:

1. A Community Unto Itself

2. Can Be Done Alone or With Others

3. Ability for Varying Commitment from Governments

4. Within The Game

5. Incentive Potential

So, note that one of the reasons that cards are so valuable for a government is that they are inside of the game. Similarly, there are a number of methods to promote cards that TNP uses quite effectively inside the game. We have programs run in the Trading Cards forum, we regularly use dispatches (which frequently reach the top spot for new dispatches and most recently, one dispatch entered the top 20 dispatches ever), we send out telegrams, display information on the WFE, and we use RMB posts.

As cards are an integral feature of the game, players will often comment on cards that they received or ask for information. It is simplistic then to further direct those players to other on-site resources (dispatches or helpful players). Then, these resources can be used to translate players into joining off-site by demonstrating further resources to them (eg. a channel to discuss cards or a thread to request free cards).

Promotion should not be limited to just gameside, Discord and off-site forums are also another opportunity. The Cards Guild regularly announces ongoing activities which has helped get players not aware of cards to be more aware of cards. On the off-site forums, further information can be promoted by having a dedicated subforum for cards - TNP's subforum has existed for less than a year but features over 50 threads and 1.7k+ messages, hence showing there is definite interest (activity creates more activity so promoting cards will help sustain the cycle).

One of the most interesting aspects to me for promoting cards are festivals. Festivals are big promotional activities featuring a number of regions. Typically, you can find what is most prominent in those regions to be shown in the festival - whether that is their bot, their military, or usually most noticeably, the RP used. Cards have been around for quite some time now. Cards used for region building has had the idea circulate publicly for almost two years now and have been used for almost a year as aforementioned. Yet, no festival has used cards yet.

Why is this the case? Well, why not answer it during a festival featuring cards? My thought is twofold, first that cards have not been sufficiently developed by a number of regions to introduce the concept into interregional affairs - if a region is still working domestically on building their cards programs, they are unlikely to have resources to devote to an inter-regional affair. Otherwise, there are a lack of ideas for interregional collaborations existing yet - many festivals are able to recycle previous activities or put a different twist to previous activities. It is harder to come up with something new entirely.

Questions Brought Up During the Event

Praeceps: I definitely think TSP should have its government get into cards (any region should!). From my knowledge, TSP is the only Feeder that has not had a program which used cards, the only other GCR which has not used cards is Osiris. Given what I know of TSP's government, I know that it would probably fall under the responsibility of the Minister of Regional Affairs. So my suggestion there is to have someone take charge. Now, TNP has a variety of programs that are run through giving out legendaries. There is an idea that to run cards programs you will need a ton of legendaries which is definitely not the case (although it does give more options).

So what should this person in TSP do?

Well, first I would recommend creating a space for cards players, somewhat that nations can discuss cards with each other and will help to identify the number of players interested. The easiest and probably best suggestion is to create a dedicated Discord channel-TNP's discord channel is quite active about cards. There is a Discord bot feature that can let you get some cards information, that's pretty cool.

Secondly, I would suggest a collection of resources to help cards players develop their own collection.There are a number of resources out there that just putting into a dispatch that is in TSP and is promoted to TSPers will be helpful. I'd definitely recommend including the Cards Guild's Comprehensive Guide to cards.

Thirdly, to run programs, you will need cards. So the government should look into running some card farms. You don't need to do it on the scale that TNP does, as even some will be helpful. These cards can be used as various prizes for different activities - from designing a new flag for the region, winning a contest, putting together a collection, etc. Even giving cards to people who may appear to not be interested in cards can hopefully inspire them to get more interested in cards.

Now, what has become quite popular recently are cards organizations. TNP's Cards Guild is the most prominent; there is also a non-regional organization. TEP and XKI have organizations as well. TSP can definitely look into creating one and options of collaboration such as a non-heisting agreement. XKI is exploring having members of their organization be responsible for contributing to the region's collection of cards which will be interesting to see how it turns out for them.

A quick and easy event to have are cards pulls (what they are exactly are defined in the Guide so I won't talk too much about that), but it's an opportunity for smaller organizations to have an event easily - especially if it is centered around a card from a TSPer that no longer exists.

If you want to get started with a card farm (on behalf of a region) I would recommend taking a look at the public technical programs out there. There are a number which will make your farming easier on you. Off the top of my head, I remember hearing that Firefox containers are quite popular. I personally will recommend Valentine Z's Golden Retriever. I use it quite frequently to find out information about my farms. I believe Racoda has created one even more in depth.

If you're starting out a card farm - and I hear pretty much everybody say this - but the recommendation is to start small. Legendary rates (the best reward to give out, generally speaking) aren't too low (although they aren't common!). Even a farm of, say, 10 nations will help you build a stockpile.

If as a government you are going to be giving out cards, make sure that if you say that in the future, we will be giving out 10 legendaries a month, that that is a sustainable rate for the people farming.

It would be quite embarrassing for the region to not have enough cards to give out.

TNP has a Guide. This is probably the best resource for cards players that I can recommend as it includes links to other resources. Other regions have linked to our Guide since it's so good (shoutout to DGES for doing most of the work there). TNP also hosts public pull events; these are advertised in the NS Trading Cards forum in addition to TNP. Most of the regions with card channels inevitably have these pull events mentioned there. There's no issue with letting your region know and they can be great community building as everyone will start card farming at the same time. After the event is over, people can compare what they got. TNP (r3n) has also created some tools which help players to find cards (e.g. if you want to find all cards that are legendaries) and information about the markets (e.g. what is the chance that you pull a legendary from a pack?). Lastly, TNP has a Monthly publication which goes out containing information about changes to the cards game, information about the market recently, but also articles about cards. Most recently, Noahs Second Country wrote about using the Security Council and Cards (feel free to hit me up if you want to write a cards article for us!).

Yes. And ironically, my ideas for cards and festivals are similar to what other areas do of putting a twist on previous activities. The two main ideas I have are pull events and a collection-based competition. You could also try something similar to the Cards Olympics (e.g. say create X new puppets and you have Y days to get as many cards from TNP/TSP with bonus points based on rarity or something).

I think the Cards Guild still has a way to go (and this is just what I see, other people will most likely come up in the future with ideas for further programs that I haven't thought of). There are a number of potential areas for improvement and collaboration that can be improved. As I have mentioned recently, festivals are an example. I also think that the community in TNP would be interested to observe it age and this also applies to Cards as a whole, to see old players leave and new players take over. For me, I plan to leave the position of Guildmaster relatively soon, I think and I have hoped that I have created an organization that I won't be needed for anymore and it can reach new heights without me (albeit I'll stick around in case I am needed).

To succinctly answer your question, I'd like to see that cards become something that isn't "new" anymore and are integrated with every other aspect of government.

Looking Into the Speech

As one might deduce from the above lecture, the goal in which Praeceps sought was to encourage members of The South Pacific to instigate their own cards program - with any other readers also being recommended to do so. He first gave reasons as to why it should be done, and then he answered any questions he received from members of the aforementioned region. It was conducted in a professional, yet enthusiastic manner, and many key details regarding (both) trading and current regional cards programs were made in order to assist with Praeceps's viewpoints.

All in all, while it is uncertain as to whether The South Pacific will actually adopt cards as a program in the future, the key point here is that promoting cards should be done in ways that will truly engage someone's interest. Sure, you can continuously hound players with messages telling them to take up trading, but it is quite likely that they will - as soon as they satisfy your request - revert back to whatever they were originally doing due to the forced nature in which you conducted your persuasion. With this in mind, promoting cards in more meaningful ways (such as in festivities like the one described above) will likely improve your chances of increasing the traderbase - and leaving a good impression via the use of detailed arguments, receptivity to further questions, and a collected or energetic demeanor may prove to be the tipping point as to whether someone may take a look as to what cards truly are within NationStates.

Section written by Destructive Government Economic System.

General Trends

Click Me!

Thanks to Racoda for making the GIF!

Any Noticeable Shifts?

As of the beginning of 7/1/2020 to 7/31/2020, trading has seen a slight stagnation in activity in comparison to the previous month's downwards slope. Whether this is to be interpreted as a positive or negative thing is uncertain, though the current total market activity trend is still noticeably high as that of previous months.

For auction activity, trades within this field began to slope downward from the start of July, leading the mean number of auctions to be an estimated 1850 for this month (in comparison to the 2500 that occurred in June).

As for gifting activity, it has risen in comparison to that of last month, with an average of 1400 daily gifts as of the end of July.

And finally, regarding Seasonal trends, trading activity for Season 1 cards has increased in comparison to June, with 600+ daily trades being conducted for this type of card. For Season 2 cards, a more centralized mean than that of June has been shown, in which the new estimated number of daily trades seems to be at the 3000 mark. This is due to the lessening of dips that comprised a large portion of the previous month's Season 2 activity..

Overall, while there was not a noticeable increase in trading activity for July, it is fortunate enough to state that there was (for the most part) a lack of decreased interest in the card market. As a result, things may go better for the traderbase in successive months!

Section written by Noahs Second Country.

General Trends

Click Me!

Thanks to Racoda for making the GIF!

Any Trend Shifts?

In terms of rarity activity, general market trends have continued from the past few months, with only a couple of anomalies.

Overall Trend Differences?

The first anomaly comes from The Northern Light gifting hundreds of epics at the beginning of July as part of the WADP awards, where every winner receives one or more epic cards. Beyond this occurrence, epic trades remained constant throughout July at around 400 trades per day, spearheaded by Frisbeeteria and Riemstagrad.

The second anomaly comes in the uncommon category, where nearly 2000 uncommon cards were gifted, creating a large spike in the graph. It is unclear who caused this and why, but The Atlae Isles may have partially contributed to this when transferring some of their cards to a puppet. The daily trades of uncommon cards fluctuate between 500 and 700 on average with this one exception.

Trades of rare cards have levelled off despite S2 Rares Collector and Mara Jade-Skywalker getting closer to completion of their collections. At 400 daily trades, this is a slight uptick from the previous month's 300 trade average.

Similarly, ultra-rare cards maintain their status as the second-least popular category, with no major investors beyond An Actual Hurricane, who recently completed their collection of every ultra-rare card. This category reflects the trend of the rares category, averaging 400 daily trades.

Legendary cards are the most scarce, and naturally the least traded as a result. Large farmers such as Mikeswill and Koem Kab continue to invest in them, slowly driving their prices up. Small spikes in this category appear on a few occasions, likely as a result of traders like Noahs Second Country, The Northern Light, and Bawkie purchasing the standing asks on certain legendary cards.

On the flip side of things, commons continue to be the most traded rarity, likely as a result of traders such as 9003, who mass collects them. Nearly 1500 commons are traded daily, likely fueled by thousands of bids placed by regional collectors and 9003.

Interestingly enough, there isn't a major spike in trades at the end of the month, which is a common trend created by the Card Olympics. Presumably, traders bought cards constantly throughout the month rather than spending large quantities of saved bank at the end. As a result, nearly every rarity is consistently traded at the same rate on any given day, at a slight increase compared to June, indicating a healthy, growing market.

Section written by Destructive Government Economic System.

Card Description - Season 2 Death and Killing Tactics 3

Why is this Card So Popular?

Though not actually popular on its own, this card has become relatively notable due to what occurred to it in the past: the first-ever 10000.00 bank purchase to date. Instigated by Noahs Second Country, Season 2 Death and Killing Tactics 3 is the only card in which the absolute maximum amount of bank has been bidded for it - with the trader responsible for the card's infamy stating that they were unable to go higher than bidding the aforementioned number (similar to how traders are unable to bid below 0.01 bank in auctions).

Immediately after the auction's conclusion, the value for the card spiked to 1000.00 bank, allowing this (otherwise) unknown card to reach the top 10 in market value. In addition, one of the few traders who owned the card (i.e. Drop Your Pants) immediately gifted it to their main account in order to tremendously increase their rank in deck value.

Overall, despite the card itself not being of particular note, the fact that it was used for the first-ever 10000.00 bank purchase has allowed it to be referenced as a historical item in the trading world!

Section written by Destructive Government Economic System.

Trader Profile - Ballotonia

Ballotonia is a trader who currently serves as one of the active game administrators. They are a highly accomplished collector in that they have finished off many hard-to-complete card groups, including the full legendary sets of Season 1 and Season 2, every game volunteer of Season 1 and Season 2, and every single historical resolution author of the aformentioned seasons.

How these collections came about is primarily a result of the user's dedication to farming, with Ballotonia regularly utilizing creatively named/themed puppet accounts (particularly TheSource, Joop, and the "Mox [x]" series) in order to both gift cards to/from and conduct bank transfers with, allowing the said trader to acquire enough cards + bank to sustain themselves (and, seeing their current rank #17 in deck value, these methods seem to have paid off well for them!).

Outside of regular trading, Ballotonia is also (at least partially) responsible for the introduction of several key tools, updates, or features to the card game, whether it be the List of Cards in XML, the facilitation of the cards API, or even the recent changes to pull event mechanics. They have done much work in order to further the interests of the card community, and it is safe to say that many experienced traders have come to appreciate the technical impacts in which Ballotonia has made over the years.

All in all, Ballotonia has made themselves clear that they are a celebrated figure in the trading cards sphere, and this will likely continue to be the case for the foreseeable future!

Interview

Due to efforts by The North Pacific Cards Guild, NationStates had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to interview Ballotonia! Here's what the user had to offer:

[All questions were asked by Destructive Government Economic System, current Deputy Guildmaster of The North Pacific Cards Guild.]

What is the TMCCC?

The "TMCCC" is the shortened term that stands for The Monthly Card Collection Competition. It was first started by The North Pacific Cards Guild on December 14, 2019 by order of the first Guildmaster Praeceps.

As to what the TMCCC does, it is (essentially) a contest between all traders within the cards community to see whose collection fits the month's theme (whatever theme it may be) the most! The month's theme (which is decided by Guild leadership) can be anything, ranging from cards that relate to comedy or collections that solely deal with the topic of love.

At the end of each month, two winners are decided (one by regular Guild members, and the other by Guild leadership), and each winner is awarded a legendary card for fitting that month's theme the best! With that in mind, it is highly encouraged to participate in the TMCCC, since you may find yourself a much-needed asset (should you win) in the form of highly valuable cards!

July 2020 Theme

The TMCCC's theme for July was peace. The nation who won the member's choice was Kuskalherria, with their collection: "Peace Eternal" consisting of cards that mention death (hence rest in peace) as well as scenery that made the collector feel at peace. The nation who won the master's choice was Dr Hooves AKA Your Name, with their collection: "Peace" consisting of cards that mainly contain peace symbols and things that bring peace.

Kuskalherria received a Season 2 legendary Undivulged Principles, while Your Name (Dr Hooves) received a Season 2 legendary North East Somerset.

Section written by Destructive Government Economic System.

What are Pull Events?

Pull events are auctions in which traders deliberately sell rare/valuable card(s) that they own to themselves (or other players, should they be trusted enough) in an attempt to have other nations pull those cards (from packs) during the auction's duration. Pull events usually have a set time and date as to when they occur (along with prior notice given before they actually start) in order to give the chance for players to prepare (whether by saving up issues or doing other tasks that allow them to participate in the event), and these events typically yield a greater chance to pull rare nations' cards than when opening packs on a normal day (a.k.a. during a time when that card is not being auctioned).

The North Pacific hosts these pull events each month, with the card to be auctioned (and pulled) being chosen by a nomination + vote from players within and outside of The North Pacific Cards Guild. At times, should The Northern Light possess enough bank, multiple cards may even be selected for the monthly pull event!

Seeing that The North Pacific regularly hosts these pull events, we've decided to regularly update the card playerbase on what went down during these exciting times, including 1) what cards were chosen (by the Guild) to be pulled, 2) who contributed to the ability to even auction the chosen card(s) for the event, and 3) who were the ones lucky enough to pull those cards. See below for each month's pull event!

July 2020 Pull Event

Weeks before the actual voting started, the traderbase was informed about changes that were made regarding how pull event functions, with the key change to note being the fact that you can no longer store packs in order to utilize them for pull events. In other words, packs must be generated when answering issues during events going onward (and opened within a span of 2 minutes); otherwise they will not contain the possibility of generating cards that were deliberately auctioned in the hopes of pulling them.

With this information in mind, on July 26, 2020, the pull event vote for the aforementioned month went up, with the Guild voting for Season 1 HMS Unicorn and Season 1 Testlandia to be pulled. Both cards would then be auctioned on July 31 at 7 P.M. EST. - with The Northern Light starting both cards' auctions and extending them via overbidding their initial offers.

Despite the fact that the success of pull events was significantly reeled in due to the recent aforementioned changes, an adequate number of traders still managed to benefit from these 2 cards' auctions. So (overall), while not as successful as the previous month's pull event, it is safe to say that July's effort ultimately paid off for many users this time around!